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The new release of Spin bundles a development version of the PointBase database, so you can create database enabled Web apps right out of the box. Hundreds of other improvements, too. Download a free evaluation copy now!
Spin awarded "Programming Tool of the Year"!
Spin triumphs over conventional programming tools, including such heavyweights as VisualAge, Visual Café, J++, JBuilder, and BeanMachine.
From the award:
Programming: Zat's Spin
The tool that really caught our eye this year (a tool that even Randal
Schwartz likes) is Zat's Spin. Zat has blended some of the best of
JavaBean development tools with an integrated web server that helps
make visual development, as well as debugging servlets, a snap.
Here's the full article.
Spin used to create special effects for the movie "All the Rage" staring Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, David Schwimmer, and Gary Sinise.
Spin rated 
!
In top 5% of Java Applications
See the full review of Spin in the July 1999 issue of WebTechniques magazine
Zat at JavaOne!
Zat gave an hour-long talk and demonstration of Spin at JavaOne — the Java Developer's Conference — in June 1999, to a large and enthusiastic crowd.Press Releases
Spin for Macintosh (25 Feb 1999)
Spin Announcement (2 Feb 1999)
Reviews
WebReview
PCWeek
Short Review by Bill Stewart
I am in charge of the QuickTime for Java group of Apple Computer. This project gives Java programs access to Apple's QuickTime technology. QuickTime is the leading multi-platform multimedia technology. We are in close contact with many of the companies, artists, and institutions that create multimedia content. A good authoring tool is needed to make it easier for artists and companies to create online multimedia content. Based on our knowledge of existing and emerging tools, we believe that Zat's product has the potential to become a dominant authoring tool for the Internet.The Internet is emerging as a primary means of distributing multimedia content. The importance of a tool that has as its core a model for dealing with distributed content cannot be underestimated. Traditional tools for authoring multimedia solutions have added some support for media resources that are non-local. This is far short of a solution. A solution must have at its core the concept that media and content are distributed. The Zat product takes this fact as a core assumption. It provides a more powerful and integrated solution to assembling and viewing multimedia content.
While observing a demonstration of Spin, I chose a bean randomly from a site. The example bean was written with no prior knowledge of Spin. When loaded into Spin, this bean automatically was available to be used within the tool. It was capable of being scripted and controlled by the other features of the Zat environment. This attribute provides a user an extraordinary range of features that no single vendor could otherwise support.
The Zat product provides the best implementation I have seen to date. It not only supports the standard features of a bean box, it easily allows the user to "cut and paste", archive, and have available, user-defined behaviors.
I am very impressed by how this product supports distributed computing concepts. Most of the tools available do not consider the importance of this. It has also provided concepts within the tool that should allow the program to scale to large and complex projects, allowing reuse of what Zat calls "capsules". These capsules can be utilized between projects as well as within projects.
No other Java-based tool, and very few if any general-purpose multimedia tools, provide any support for large projects. These tools are focussed on small projects. Increasingly we find companies developing large projects.
Short Review by Randy Kessler
I am the Technical Director of Learning Objects, a joint venture with San Francisco State University. Our business is to develop, install and maintain online training and distanced learning solutions for businesses and other clients. We regularly utilize a variety of software development tools to produce interactive multimedia projects.Zat's product is the first exciting possibility we have seen for authoring online content in Java. As developers of online learning systems, we see potential for a library of online training Javabeans with a trademarked online instructional model. We are enthusiastic about contributing to the development of an online training tool using Zat's product.
